


Meanwhile, Back on Earth

by orphan_account



Category: DearS
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-25
Updated: 2011-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-28 02:39:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/302830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nonaka doesn't know what Xaki wants from him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Meanwhile, Back on Earth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rose Argent (roseargent)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/roseargent/gifts).



> My apologies if there are any canon errors (the first half of the manga is surprisingly hard to find, so I had to go pretty much off of memory, and my beta was only familiar with the anime).
> 
> Hope you like it nonetheless; happy holidays!
> 
> * * *

Xaki is a terrible DearS. It’s not just that he’s not a girl, it’s not just that he’s seven feet tall and built like a brick wall and frankly scares the _shit_ out of Nonaka, it’s not even that his face is stuck in a permanent scowl and he insists on wearing what amounts to about half a pint of liquid latex and not much else (although that may explain the scowl). All of these things are bad enough, especially combined, but the absolute _worst_ part is how he follows him everywhere like an overzealous guard dog and never, _ever_ leaves him alone.

He wishes he knew why. That bothers him almost as much as the stalking—not that he can’t figure him out, not that he can’t ever tell what Xaki is thinking, but that he _wants_ to. Nonaka has never cared much for guys, even the one or two who would very shyly hang around him in the same way that girls did, but Xaki—he just does not give up, _ever_ , as if by sheer persistence he can make Nonaka change his mind, and Nonaka can’t help but wonder what the hell kind of person does that.

It might be easier if Xaki were more approachable (a word that can only be used in relation to Xaki if immediately preceded by “the antithesis of”), but getting him to talk at all is an uphill battle, and Nonaka is always kind of afraid that Xaki is going to randomly pick him up and break him in half, which isn’t exactly conducive to conversation. The most he’s ever really been able to get out of him are things like “you are my Master”, or “I am your Gift”, neither of which Xaki has been able (or willing) to provide adequate explanations for. Nonaka certainly does not remember signing on for a DearS, let alone a big scary male one who communicates primarily through a series of glares and monosyllables.

“Look,” Nonaka finally tells him one day, when what’s left of his already-fragile patience runs out. It’s been a particularly bad day at school, and Xaki’s presence is somehow even more irritating than usual—Nonaka sort of hoped he’d be banned from the campus, but Mitsuka-sensei had taken one look at him and told Nonaka that it was perfectly all right for him to bring his DearS in to school with him _every day_ , whereupon all of her clothes mysteriously fell off at once—anyway, Nonaka has just had _enough_ of all the weird stares and students laughing behind their hands and not being able to get near anyone without them quailing away in terror. They don’t even bother to _pretend_ anymore, they just cringe and scuttle away when they see him and his big hulking shadow coming.

So he says, “Look.” And Xaki does look at him, with that same weird stone-faced expression as always, and Nonaka isn’t sure if he’s actually interested or just waiting to hear a reason why he shouldn’t kill him. “If I’m your Master—then you do what I tell you to, right? So I _order_ you to go away and _leave me alone_!”

There’s a very long pause. Xaki’s expression shifts, just a little bit, just enough that Nonaka is almost sure he didn’t imagine it—but then it’s gone, and Xaki looks exactly the same as he always does.

Then he turns around and, without a word, walks away.

Nonaka stares after him in disbelief. If he’d known it was that easy, he would have said it _ages_ ago, and spared himself this entire mess. Xaki doesn’t even look back, just keeps going in a perfectly straight line as though it’s the world’s responsibility to get out of _his_ way. (Pretty much everyone does. It’s a natural reaction to seeing Xaki bearing down on them.)

Nonaka enjoys the rest of his afternoon, even though people are still giving him a wide berth, their eyes darting wildly around like they expect Xaki to leap out and menace them if they get too close. But his failure to reappear makes a few of them brave, and Nonaka actually manages to hold a conversation with a couple of girls who work up their courage enough to come within three feet of him. That puts him in a good mood, even though when he asks them out for coffee they suddenly remember that they have to go do something else (the “before Xaki comes back” is, by this point, pretty much implicit).

His mood starts to go downhill again when Xaki fails to come home that night. Nonaka leaves the window open for him—he has not yet figured out how, exactly, to explain Xaki to his parents, and he’s pretty sure if he tries to lock him out then Xaki will just punch his way through the wall, so he has him sneak in through the window and then makes him hide in his closet whenever his parents are around, which is one of those things that is so ridiculous that it somehow works. But he doesn’t come back before Nonaka goes to bed, and the window is still open when he wakes up, even though Xaki is always so considerate about closing it afterwards.

Three days later, Xaki has still not returned. Nonaka is—not worried, of course; if anyone can take care of themselves, Xaki can. And besides, this is exactly what he wanted, isn’t it? It’s just that the sudden lack of crazy DearS in his life is jarring, that’s all. He’s gotten so used to Xaki _always_ hanging around, even if he never really said anything, or even _did_ anything beyond be aggressively huge and glowery at him.

Nonaka likes to be by himself. Other people—other people are like toys, which are fun for a while, but he likes to be able to leave them behind when he’s done with them. He doesn’t _like_ relationships that aren’t on his terms, he doesn’t _like_ situations that he can’t control, and Xaki is all of that wrapped up in a big scary package, and yet somehow he’s gotten so used to him just _being_ there all the time that not having him feels…weird. It feels somehow worse than before.

Maybe it’s a DearS thing, because the only other person he’s ever felt like this about was Ren, and that—Nonaka isn’t really ready to go there yet, at least partly because with Ren he was pretty sure that she wasn’t going to disembowel him if she got bored with him. With Xaki, it’s hard to believe he _wouldn’t_.

All the same, he kind of misses him. Just a little. Just because it’s strange to not always feel him standing right over his shoulder, glaring at anyone who comes near them, always on alert like he’s…like he’s waiting for something, but Nonaka doesn’t know what and he’s afraid to find out.

It’s not like he _wants_ a DearS, especially not one like Xaki, but if Xaki came back he would…well, he’d be less likely to tell him to leave again. Probably.

But he has no idea where Xaki might have gone. The spaceship is gone, and DearS tend to stick out in a crowd—especially one like Xaki—but he hasn’t seen him since he watched him walk away three days ago, and no one else seems to have seen him either, judging by how they’re actually starting to relax around him a little. Takeya might have known, because he attracts DearS like Nonaka used to attract girls, but he’s long gone too and Nonaka isn’t sure if his pride would survive asking anyone else.

So he does the only thing he can think of. Tonight, as he’s opening the window before bed, he leans out and says awkwardly, “You can—if you wanted to come back, that would be…okay. I mean, I wouldn’t mind.”

He leaves a sandwich on the windowsill, just for good measure (DearS are attracted to food, right?). When he wakes up, though, the window is still open, and there’s no Xaki standing by his bed and giving him a good-morning glower. The sandwich is gone, but for all Nonaka knows, a stray cat or something ate it. (A stray cat probably wouldn’t have cleaned the plate and left it neatly on his desk, although he’s not sure Xaki would have done that, either.)

As he’s on his way to school, though, a familiar step falls in with his, and he looks up to see that everyone around him has carefully moved over to the other side of the street. He looks over his shoulder, and Xaki is there, glaring down at him like he’s never left.

“Oh,” Nonaka says, silver-tongued charmer that he is. “Hi.”

Xaki continues to stare at him, but there’s something different than usual in it; he seems to be waiting for Nonaka to explain himself, or something like that, in which case he’s going to be waiting forever because Nonaka is _not_ going to apologize. What does he have to apologize for?

It’s Xaki who ends up speaking first, to Nonaka’s eternal shock, because when has _that_ ever happened? It’s such a surprise that he almost doesn’t register Xaki’s words, which are, “I am a failure.”

“What?” Nonaka says. Xaki’s scowl deepens.

“I failed as a Biter,” he says. “I was unable to retrieve the defective Zero Number. Now I have failed as a Black Sheep, by being unable to serve you properly.”

This is the most Nonaka has ever heard out of him, and none of it makes any sense. Something twigs in his mind, though, and he realizes what’s different about Xaki’s expression: it’s _sullen_.

“You’re _sulking_ ,” he says, fascinated, before he can stop himself. Xaki proceeds to look even _more_ surly, and now that Nonaka sees it he kind of wants to laugh, except he’s afraid Xaki will decapitate him if he does. “Don’t be upset, I just…you’re _sulking_.”

Xaki becomes slightly more expressionless. “You are angry with me,” he says, and he sounds weirdly uncertain, like this is something he actually cares about.

“Well, yeah,” Nonaka says in surprise. He wouldve thought Xaki might have picked up on it by now. “You keep following me everywhere. And you’re freaky, and you look like a stripper, and you scare people. _Including me_.”

“But,” Xaki starts. He stops, appears to think about it for a minute, and then continues, “You are my Master. I want to protect you.”

He stares even harder at Nonaka, head tilted to one side, like a dog that’s just done a particularly good trick and is waiting for praise. If it weren’t for that—if it weren’t for Xaki looking like he really, truly means it—then Nonaka honestly would not have believed he was serious.

“You’re trying to _protect me_ ,” he echoes. Xaki nods patiently. “Wait, hold on, you—that’s why you’re always hanging around and looking angry? Because you’re trying to _protect me_?”

“I don’t always look angry,” Xaki says, and the scary part is that he seems serious about that, too. “But, yes. You don’t…” He pauses again, like he can’t find the words to say what he’s trying to get across, which—given that this is probably more than he’s ever said in his _entire life_ —is likely. “You don’t give me orders. I was not trained like the…like the other DearS, to know what to expect. I can only do what I already know.”

He really is a guard dog, Nonaka realizes. A guard dog that followed someone home and is trying to be a lapdog even though it has no idea how. “I _have_ given you orders,” he says in disbelief. “I’ve told you to _go away_.”

“I can’t leave you,” says Xaki. “You are my Master.”

“You left the other day.”

“You were angry with me.”

And so they’ve come full-circle. “You make no _sense_ ,” Nonaka cries, at the end of his rope and then some. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know what you _want_ from me.”

“I want to make you happy,” Xaki tells him. Nonaka just _looks_ at him, not at all able to believe that this conversation is actually happening. It’s probably a good thing no one wants to be around them, because he really doesn’t want anyone else to hear this.

“Why _me_?” he demands. “No, seriously, what did I do? I met you all of _once_ and then suddenly I’m your Master and you’re all about— _protecting_ me and making me happy. Did I fulfill some freaky alien ritual by accident or something? Are we alien-married now?”

Xaki appears to consider this. Finally he says, “You seemed nice.”

“ _What_.”

“You seemed nice,” he says again, as though this is not the most ridiculous thing in the _universe_. “You seemed like you would love very easily. We are—drawn to love—but it’s more than that. I…” Once again he pauses, thinks about it, and continues, “I _chose_ you. And you accepted me as your Gift.”

“I did _not_ accept you,” Nonaka says in horror. Xaki just looks at him.

“You didn’t reject me,” he says. “You accepted my presence. You accepted me as a part of your life.”

“I was afraid you’d _kill me_ if I didn’t!” Nonaka shouts, and that was exactly the wrong thing to say, because Xaki—his expression _breaks_ and for a moment he looks actually, genuinely horrified, the same kind of look that normal people get when they look at _him_ , except a thousand times worse because it’s _Xaki_. He starts to reach up and Nonaka flinches back from him automatically; Xaki freezes in place and Nonaka realizes that, in all this time, this is the first time he’s ever actually tried to touch him.

“Why—” Now it’s not so much that Xaki doesn’t know what to say, as he seems to be having difficulty just _saying_ it. “Why would I—”

His hand drops back down to his side. Nonaka feels kind of guilty, but he’s not sure why. It’s not like any sane person _wouldn’t_ be scared to death of Xaki, it’s not like he’s ever given him any reason to think he _wasn’t_ on the verge of kicking his face in, but he seems so completely taken aback that Nonaka would even _think_ that he might—

Slowly, like he’s trying to put a lot of things into just a few words, he says, “I would _never_ hurt you.”

“Okay,” Nonaka says, partly because he’s afraid to say anything else, and partly because he sort of does believe it. Xaki had looked so _shocked_ …

“You took care of me,” Xaki is continuing. “You took care of me when I was sick. And last night, you called me back to your side.”

Yes, he had, because he’d missed him. Xaki freaks him out and he’s still not convinced that he’s really not going to hurt him, but he’d missed him, and he’d called him back. Because Xaki _is_ a part of his life now and Nonaka can’t change that, doesn’t really _want_ to change that, and that’s what scares him most of all. Once again, he says, almost desperately, “But what do you _want_ from me?”

And once again, Xaki answers with, “I want to make you happy.”

This time, though, he adds, “I will try harder. I do not like being a failure.”

Then he shuts up, abruptly. Nonaka thinks that he’s probably worn out his vocal chords from all that talking. He might not say anything for the next year or so, which Nonaka would be okay with (and if the implication there is that he’s okay with Xaki still being here in a year, well, he’s just not going to think about that right now).

After a few minutes of silence, he reaches out and, hesitantly, gives him a very awkward pat on the—well, he was aiming for his shoulder, but Xaki is just _too damn tall_ and so it ends up being more on his lower bicep. Xaki stops and looks at him like he’s insane, because this is the first time Nonaka has ever really touched him, too.

“If,” Nonaka manages, and he can’t quite make himself look right at him, “if you’re going to try harder, you should start by putting some real clothes on.”

Xaki—he doesn’t smile, but he kind of not-frowns, and that’s probably as close to it as he’s going to come.


End file.
